Semiconductor optical devices, such as amplifiers and modulators, typically have different optical effects for different polarization states. Solutions to create consistent optical effects for different polarization states include using bulk materials with a specific strain (i.e., tuning a material's opto-electrical properties by altering its structure), mixed strained quantum wells, and quantum wells with a specific strain; however, these solutions suffer a reduced performance compared to highly strained polarization-specific (e.g., transverse electric (TE) and transverse magnetic (TM) mode specific) optical components.
Descriptions of certain details and implementations follow, including a description of the figures, which may depict some or all of the embodiments described below, as well as discussing other potential embodiments or implementations of the inventive concepts presented herein. An overview of embodiments of the invention is provided below, followed by a more detailed description with reference to the drawings.